Driving that’s too fast, too dangerous and utterly lawless: why do we tolerate this petro-masculinity?

I understand the academic roots and I'm sure the paper it was coined in is top tier sociology. But we have got to stop labeling bad shit as masculine, it only amplifies the behavior. The dude 6" off your bumper is not going to hear "petro-masculinity" and have a quiet contemplative moment about carbon emissions and road safety. He's going to feel scolded, hear that you're triggered and frightened of his masculinity, and then he's going to start driving even more aggressively out of spite. And nobody will stop him, because nobody with the power to do so cares. Hell, the cops themselves are often the ones who drive like this.

Petro masculinity 😂.

It’s like they want people to make fun of them.

My mom drives like this, don't be sexist about a non gendered issue. Ah just realized it's from the opinion article title.

gonna be a fascinating time as gas spikes and these chuds lose their whole personality over not being able to drive their roided up shitmobiles everywhere.

same with monster truck rallies - how long can that garbage continue? or any conspicuous consumption?

we're better off with it all dead.

Petro-Insecurity, not Petro-Masculinity

Look at history.

"Whippersnapper" came from young men racing horses and buggies on the roads. They'd snap the whips over the horses heads to make them go faster.

My wife does this and she drives an EV. So what’s “Petro” and “masculine” about that?

Journalism finally discovering terminal car brain?

Rolling coal, giant lifted trucks, all this shit, just take their licenses away forever and let them drown in the car-centric cesspool they created.

Because a cop's job is to protect the rich. They do the bare minimum to keep us in line, to keep the people from considering rioting, to keep us going to work, etc.

Power doesn't care whether we kill each other, wreck cars, plow over kids in the cross-walk, etc. Power has no empathy. Power only cares when we get so fed up we take to the streets and show up at their front door with torches and pitchforks. That's when the cops earn their pay, when they show up in force, kitted out, and ready to rumble.

Kids being shot inside the school? Hold back till the shooting stops, don't want any of us getting hurt.

People rioting and threatening power directly? Bring out the tanks. Remember the George Floyd protests?

Honestly driving fast is kinda overrated and probably a consequences of driving big comfortable cars and people bring dopamine junkies

Because we think it kills more of them than it actually kills the rest of us?

Maybe play up their petro-instability. Describe how much more aggressively they can drive with the massive instant torque of an EV, compared to their obsolete clanking collection of gears

Racing has existed since the beginning of time, ever since one person challenged another that they are faster, and the bet was called. The Need for Speed is not just a cars problem... From horses to bikes, autos, boats, airplanes, and even commuter trains, someone wants to go fast. Best we can do is enforce and penalize dangerous behavior on the road and not shut down every motorsport park that gives people an "out" for this.

Trump is solving one part of the problem.... Now only rich assholes can have a big ass truck. So they'll probably be less and probably have insurance. Probably.

It's ignored by police because it's one or more less vehicles traveling fast. Not every State Trooper or Police Officer is trained to drive 140 mph or higher, I would guess most aren't. I'm sure the idiots in the trucks don't know how to drive that fast either.

i see people switching lanes suddenly without warning is more dangerous.

M.A.D.D. was too weak for the Vin Diesel onslaught. Also, fuck Jackie Stewart! /s

Driving that’s too fast, too dangerous and utterly lawless: why do we tolerate this petro-masculinity?

Men have risk-taking burned into their DNA thanks to hundreds of thousands of years of primate evolution. This is not anything that can be switched off.

And It will come out whether society wants it to or not.

What truly matters is if there is a venue in which such risk-taking can freely exist, equally as unrestrained and chaotic, without impacting wider society. Because if that venue doesn’t exist… any venue immediately available will be violently cracked open regardless of what anyone wants.

It all comes down to supply and demand. If the demand is there, supply will be generated regardless of the punishments in place to discourage it. And frequently in spite of punishments, as successful evasion becomes an integral part of the risk-taking as well.

You cannot smother basic human nature. That has never worked at any time in human history. All you can do is divert it and insulate the rest of society from it.

This sounds very whiny. Why don't you get your local council to build some speed bumps. No one is going to speed up over them. And the idiots will then go on to get killed on the empty country roads.